30 Days in Sydney Read online

  If Sydney was a fort then would not the barracks be a part of our architectural vernacular? Did not those awful flats on Old South Head Road bear a close resemblance to barracks buildings at Chowder Bay, Garden Island Naval Dockyard and Cockatoo Island as well? You do not join the army to admire the view.

  Now, said my persistent companion, you are mocking Sydney.

  No, I am explaining some awful architecture.

  Yes, but in the end you are claiming the citizens are nervous nellies. 'The Russians are invading!' 'Napoleon is coming!' You make them appear ridiculous. What interest would Napoleon have in it, for Jesus' sake? This was well before the surfing craze.

  They were not mistaken at all. As a young man Napoleon sought to ship with La Perouse. If he had had his wish he would have been in Botany Bay at the same time as the First Fleet. We know Napoleon never lost his interest in Sydney.

  I suppose the city was teeming with his spies.

  You need not smirk. There is evidence of one at least. François Pèron. A famous naturalist. He reported the fortifications of Sydney in great detail. It was invasion that was on his mind.

  And you will not refrain from quoting, I suppose?

  I will not, no. To the right at the north point of Sydney Cove, you perceive the signal battery, which is built upon a rock difficult of access: six pieces of cannon, protected by a turf entrenchment, cross their fire with that of another battery which I shall presently mention.

  He does sound like a spy, I warrant.

  Pèron concluded Sydney Harbour was too well fortified a place to attack. But he thought they could invade at Broken Bay.

  Correct me if I am wrong, but the only attack in Sydney Harbour was the Japanese in 1942, and that is long ago and best forgotten in the present climate.

  That alters nothing. This harbour is a fort. It is this which makes its bones. You can see this in a satellite photograph. Immense fortifications all showing bright red from the Heads to Sydney Cove.

  It is only the trees that show bright red.

  Yes, and for 200 years those we trusted with our city's defence have also defended eighty acres at Bradleys Head from developers and their mates in government. They likewise saved 115 acres at Georges Head in Chowder Bay. There are 183 more acres at North Head, another thirty-odd acres at South Head. They still control that multi-layered midden heap of a site at Cockatoo Island. They have not only saved us priceless green space but a great deal of delicate history as well. I offer as my first exhibit the road to Bungaree's farm.

  I know that name. He was the most famous Aboriginal ever born. Did not he go to London and meet the king?

  That was Bennelong. This was Bungaree who travelled with Matthew Flinders on his great voyages of exploration. Also he was a great favourite of Governor Macquarie who seems to have had the impertinent idea that he would civilise him. Macquarie got a passion to settle Bungaree and his relatives on a European-style farm.

  There's a folly for you.

  Indeed it was. On Tuesday January 31, 1815, which was the governor's birthday, Macquarie and his wife and a large party of ladies and gentlemen were rowed the six miles down the harbour to Georges Head, the same place where the battery and arsenal and barracks were later constructed.

  Here the governor decorated Bungaree with a brass gorget, declaring him 'Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe', and he showed Bungaree his farm on which he had constructed huts for his people.

  Bungaree must have thought this a mighty joke.

  Bungaree's people starting working with great zeal, but soon they sold off their tools and returned to their earlier way of life.

  You began telling this because you claimed some delicate history had been saved by these military occupations?

  Yes, Macquarie made a road from the beach up to the farm.

  Now you're going to say the road is still there?

  I think it is. I walked across the abandoned submarine base at Chowder Bay, up across the bitumen, into the bush where I was shown a steep overgrown path about six feet wide.

  What a foolish sentimental monument. What a thing to be preserved.

  Geoff Bailey, who is the head of the interim planning committee for these old defence sites, would not make an absolute claim but there is no other good explanation for the road's existence. It starts out from the best place for the ladies and gentlemen to come ashore, it is the right width for a cart, it leads to the place where the farm seems to have been. The farm itself was bulldozed years ago and turned into a playing field.

  You were foolish to be so complimentary about the military.

  Yes, but if you ever should be permitted to visit Cockatoo Island you'll see how the defence forces leave us a thousand times more history than real-estate developers.

  What is it like? Take your time now.

  A great plateau of sandstone which has been eroded and extended with successive landfills. Forsaken nineteenth-century prisons and barracks still occupy its crown. Down on the southern waterfront a desolate direct-current power station, its walls lined with mercury vapour flasks, sits waiting for its Frankenstein or Spielberg. A great tunnel cuts through its centre, from north to south, the most direct way for workers to pass from one side to the other. Two huge dry docks, where apprentices dived and swam in the boiling Sydney summers, lie abandoned. Cockatoo Island occupies less than one square mile, but it is difficult to imagine a more complex or satisfying historical site. Here you'll find convict barracks adapted as Second World War air-raid shelters, with nineteenth-century sandstone walls topped by brutal concrete three foot thick.

  No respect for history here.

  Yes, the disrespect is perfect. Let me give you another example. The first convicts were put to work, cutting huge narrow-necked grain silos into the living rock of the plateau.

  Years later a new machine shop was needed so a great slice of the mother rock, from plateau to sea level, was carved away. That this destroyed six of the convict silos was, naturally enough, no obstacle, but that great brutal slice through the rock now shows the silo better than any curator might have dreamed. If the visitor pushes his back hard against the corrugated-iron wall of the abandoned machine shop, if he shades his eye against the sun, he can see in transverse section a twelve-foot-high carafe carved from the top of the plateau.

  Now, of course, we must decide what will be done with these sites the defence forces have kept for us.

  Shut up.

  I'll not shut up. Did I say parts of the island are very beautiful, tree-lined walks with cottages and views the equal of nothing in the world?

  Shut up, stop talking to yourself. That fellow with the beard is staring at you.

  My God, it's Sheridan, my friend.

  Not another word to me.

  As the shambolic man with the greying beard came walking towards me, grinning lopsidedly, the ferry arrived at Manly Wharf with such force that he staggered sideways.

  Perfect, he cried as we embraced, completely fucking perfect.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NOW HERE IS THE thing, said Sheridan as we came down off the wharf in Manly which had been a very pretty village in 1888 but these days has the very democratic odour of tomato sauce about it. Here's the thing, he said, slinging the coil of yellow rope over his broad shoulder as we pushed through the crowd around the sushi bar. I am not actually going home right now. I've come to pick up the Merc and then I'm going up to the Blue Mountains.

  Are you climbing?

  No, he said, I'm not. Why are you coming to see me this bloody way?

  I shrugged. I could not tell him I was not going to see him. I was off to collect that story from Jack Ledoux.

  Were you trying to avoid the bridge?

  When did I tell you about the bridge?

  I always think of Kurt Vonnegut when you call me. How does it go? I'm an old fart now and my breath smells of mustard gas and roses and I like to get drunk and call my old friends in the middle of the night. Last time you called you said you were going to co
me to the mountains with me, or did you forget that too?

  Well I'm writing a book about Sydney.

  The Blue Mountains are part of Sydney.

  Sherry, it's eighty miles to Katoomba.

  Jesus, Peter, the mountains are the jail walls of Sydney. They are connected, physically, geologically, dramatically. You cannot write about Sydney and leave out the Blue Mountains. He put his big arm around my shoulders. In this embrace I detected the musty smell of someone who had been sleeping on sofas, and I remembered what I had heard that morning on Bondi Beach, that Sherry had not only lost his wife but his job. He had written for the soaps for twenty years, but the producers were younger now and they would not tolerate his tirades against them.

  You should have called when you arrived, he said. I went out to the airport but I had my information wrong.

  I'll come, I said suddenly.

  Of course you'll bloody come. He crushed me violently against him and I felt all his need and frailty in his mighty chest.

  But first, he said, you're going to meet this amazing man. You cannot write a book about Sydney and leave him out. And then he was off, walking as fast as he was talking, head down, arms flailing, enthusing about the mechanic who kept his 33-year-old 230s running. In 400 yards of pavement he covered a whole life story - the guy had a PhD in philosophy and lost his wife and became an alcoholic and survived for five years collecting empty cans and bottles and then became a car thief until he fell in love with this blonde surfie chick with a rusted-out Merc and now he fixed Mercs.

  When I first knew Sheridan he lived with winos and derros on the street in Darlinghurst and he later published a wonderful book of photographs and life stories. When drunk he was inclined to talk of this book bitterly, as the high point of his moral life.

  As it turned out the mechanic was not there. The roller door was down and locked, and Sheridan's car was parked out in the lane with the key hidden somewhere in the tangle of the back seat. If the paintwork was chalkier than the last time I saw it, the interior had not changed - Coke cans and cigarette packs on the floor, the back seat filled with ropes, climbing boots, camping equipment and a great assortment of books and papers.

  You'll meet him later, said Sheridan as we ground slowly up the hill out of Manly. He grinned at me and showed the big white teeth in the middle of his hairy face.

  Fuck it. We'll go along the Parramatta Road.

  It's the long way round.

  Who gives a fuck? You can't write about Sydney and leave out the Parramatta Road.

  This was my first warning that Sheridan's sometimes worrying enthusiasm was being put at the service of my project. He had not only made room for me inside the car, he was now altering his plans to suit what he understood to be the nature of my enquiry.

  Parramatta Road is like the city's spine, he said, it was the most important road in the colony. When they couldn't get anything to grow in Sydney Cove they found better ground in Parramatta.

  Rose Hill, it was called.

  That's right, said Sheridan, raising his eyebrows in delight. Exactly. Rose fucking Hill.

  So we drove back into the city, across the bridge, which caused me not the least anxiety when someone else was driving, and in half an hour, having made a stop for the Diet Coke which Sheridan was now drinking in terrifying quantity, we tooled along the charmless de-natured landscape which is the Parramatta Road.

  This is Sydney, declared Sheridan, throwing his empty Coke can into the back seat. The harbour is peripheral. The harbour is not a place that anyone can afford to live. Parramatta is the geographic centre of Sydney.

  This is not an attractive drive, Sherry.

  Did I say it was? The thing is, Pete, it's historic.

  Historic? All I could see were car yards and flapping plastic flags and garish sanserif signs CRAZY BARRY'S DISCOUNT PRICES. It was a smaller uglier version of Route 17 in New Jersey.

  Look, screamed Sheridan, I can tell you're not looking.

  Well there's an old bullnose verandah, I said.

  No, fuck the verandah, said Sheridan, ponderously overtaking a marginally slower truck. Just ask yourself why the most important road in the colony would be filled with car yards. Come on, this is your family history, Pete. Didn't your grandfather have a stables? Weren't your family horse traders? Yes? Didn't your granddad go on to taxis and T-model Fords? Well, this is how it was with the Parramatta Road. This is where the stables were, where the horse traders were.

  How do you know that?

  It's obvious. This was the only fucking road. It led to John Macarthur. All the governors rode this way when they came out to pay their respects to old Captain Rum Corps. When Bligh wanted to inform John Macarthur he was prohibited from building on his allotment, he sent the poor old surveyor general galloping along this road. These car yards are historic markers. I'd put a fucking brass plaque on every one.

  Did we actually have to come here so you could tell me that?

  Yes, said Sheridan, as we finally turned from the desolation of Parramatta Road on to the freeway, you gotta understand what is hidden.

  Ahead of us we could see the Blue Mountains, very low and exceedingly blue with all those millions of drops of eucalyptus oil refracting the sunlight.

  Don't look like nothing, do they? It's like the Parramatta Road. You can look at it and never know.

  I never liked the drive up here, I said.

  Fuck the drive. I'm trying to educate you. You know nothing about these mountains, mate, no offence, except maybe sitting in the Fork 'n' View and getting pissed on a Sunday lunch, so I am attempting, because I like you in spite of the fact that you have come home twice and not called me - I'm over that - but I'm trying to point out how deceptive the mountains are. In fact, I have just been reading Darwin, and he came here, yes, the great bloody Charles Darwin, and you can see the patronising shitbag getting it so wrong - that is until he finally understands what he is messing with. It's there on the back seat. Get it. Read it to me, in that cardboard box with all the paper.

  I twisted myself into the back seat and finally discovered, beneath a tangle of plastic bags, a book.

  Sheridan, this looks valuable. It's really old.

  It's a book. There are Post-its. Read it, Pete, for Christsake.

  I obeyed, reading the words Sheridan had underlined in brutal ballpoint pen: From their absolute altitude, Darwin had written, I expected to have seen a bold chain of mountains crossing the country; but instead of this, a sloping plain presents merely an inconsiderable front to the low land near the coast.

  Stop, said Sheridan, now skip ahead to where I marked it down there. If you're not going to finish that Coke you can give it to me. There, at the top of the page, that's where Darwin finally realises what he's messing with. Following down a little valley . . . read it.

  Following down a little valley and its tiny rill of water, I read, an immense gulf unexpectedly opens through the trees which border the pathway, at a depth of perhaps 1,500 feet. Walking on a few yards, I read, one stands at the brink of a vast precipice, and below one sees a grand bay or gulf, for I know not what other name to give it, thickly covered with forest. The point of view is situated as if at the head of a bay, the line of cliff diverging on each side, and showing headland behind headland, as on a bold sea coast.

  Fast forward. I've marked it lower.

  Very early in the morning?

  Good fellow.

  Very early in the morning I walked about three miles to Govett's Leap: a view of similar character with that near the Weatherboard, but perhaps even more stupendous. So early in the day the gulf was filled with a thin blue haze, which although destroying the general effect of the view added to the apparent depth at which the forest was stretched out beneath our feet. These valleys which so long presented an insuperable barrier to the attempts of the most enterprising of the colonists . . .

  That's the other thing, cried Sheridan, tearing the book violently from my hand and returning it whence it came, th
ese mountains are a massive fact of life. Darwin could travel here along the road, but for thirty years these mountains had been impassable. The convicts and their jailers were locked up together, chained together on the coast. There were eight fucking expeditions. Eight. They bashed their way up rivers and waterfalls. They had no idea how to live off the land so they carried all this shit with them. Tons of stuff, and they would just give up and turn back. Look at those mountains. They don't look like anything. Nothing is revealed, to quote the song. But they're older than the fucking Himalayas, and they are very fucking deep, mate.

  So lunatics like you throw themselves over the edge on ropes.

  Sheridan gave me a thoughtful look. Mmmm, he said, and, for the first time in our journey, fell silent.

  There are a couple of things I could tell you, he began again, but I wouldn't want certain people to know I was, like, Deep Throat.

  I'll change your name?

  To what?

  How about 'Sheridan'?

  You sarcastic bugger, you never did believe I was descended from Sheridan.

  I do.

  Then call me Sheridan, I don't give a fuck. Now we're coming up on to the mountains. This bit is steep but it gives no idea of the obstacles they had to overcome.

  I remember the road now, and I began to recall why I had come here so rarely. It was not that I ever failed to be thrilled and astonished by the extraordinary drama of the Blue Mountains: the sublime vistas, the plunging waterfalls, the teetering stairs, the dizzy ledges, but this road always made me despondent. There was something so melancholy about the rusting electric railway lines running beside the little towns, something so stunted and mediocre in the architecture that I always became depressed on the way there and depressed on the way back.